


what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl

by Roccolinde



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, minor mentions of other characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28080267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roccolinde/pseuds/Roccolinde
Summary: Peace was not a state inclined to last, even when one had the will of the gods and the defeat of the Mede army behind one. It was a constant battle of wills and diplomacy, of power and control. It was a lesson Attolia had learnt young and used well, and it had been her only companion for many long years. Even now it remained familiar, an awareness there was a cost to be paid and she the one to pay it; it was her duty, and she would not shirk it. But she is no longer alone.
Relationships: Attolia | Irene & Eddis | Helen, Attolia | Irene/Eugenides, Eddis | Helen/Sophos
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	what slows down the nights to a long lingering crawl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lilith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith/gifts).



> Lilith, when I received your prompts, I was utterly delighted to see that what you loved about the Queen’s Thief series and what you wanted to see was what I loved and wanted to see. Of course, with such an overlap there seemed to be more pressure to get it exactly right. I have no idea if I even came close, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Title from _The Aeneid_

Attolia had been at her desk for hours, missive after missive to be penned though she would rather be elsewhere. Peace was not a state inclined to last, even when one had the will of the gods and the defeat of the Mede army behind one. It was a constant battle of wills and diplomacy, of power and control. It was a lesson Attolia had learnt young and used well, and it had been her only companion for many long years. Even now it remained familiar, an awareness there was a cost to be paid and she the one to pay it; it was her duty, and she would not shirk it. Dismissing her melancholy thoughts, she dipped her pen into the inkwell and continued her most recent letter. 

There was a noise from outside the room, and then the door opened. Attolia lifted her head to see Relius enter, followed as he often was by the young Pheris. The child who’d come to the city as an insult was now a young man, with the shadow of a beard on days none of the attendants thought to help him shave; Attolia motioned her greeting and set her pen aside. 

Relius bowed. “Your Majesty.”

“Yes, Relius?”

“We have had word from Kamet,” he said, producing carefully folded paper from a pocket.

The scribe had been sent to the library of the Baron Susa, under the pretense of copying some old scrolls hidden there. In truth he had wished to avoid a certain Mede ambassador he’d known years before, and Attolia had sent him and Costis to the baron’s household, with permission to visit Costis’ family before they returned. That it was advantageous to her as well was almost secondary.

She opened the message, reading its contents and frowning. It was as she’d expected, but hoped to be wrong—another restless baron, determined to take apart the charter for his own gain and phrasing it as interest in what was best for the people. Not even the position of his grandson could quell him now. Looking out the window, she saw how low the sun hung in the sky. “Thank you,” she said. “I will attend to this in the morning.”

Relius did not approve, he very rarely did, but did not quarrel. Attolia lit the small lamp on her desk and placed the letter over the flame, the thin paper turning to ash, and then stood.

“Thank you as always, dear friend,” she said warmly. 

“My Queen,” Relius returned, the lightest flush of satisfaction on his cheeks. “I hope I will have more to share soon.”

“I trust you will,” she replied. “But for now…”

It was a gentle dismissal, for the hour was later than she had realised and there were places she must be. Relius and Pheris left the room, and Attolia retook her seat. The letter could wait until the morn, so she carefully locked it away and left the room. She headed through the palace, followed by silent guards and attendants both; she had little patience for those who tried to curry favour or gain attention in these moments, and those who followed her learnt that soon enough. It was not long before they arrived at her destination, and when they did, the attendants and guards both paused at the door. 

She had heard many reasons whispered for the location of the children’s rooms, from motherly affection to a wish to control her heirs tightly so they might not be turned against her, and perhaps there was truth in all of them. But what lay inside these rooms was not for Attolia, not for Attolis. It had been a battle between her husband and her captain of the guard, until Gen had spat that if his children intended to assassinate him he would no doubt deserve it, and Teleus had said they ought to do it soon and save him the trouble. Gen had won that particular argument. 

The apartments were large and airy, a circular room to play and learn surrounded by smaller bedrooms and high open arches that looked out over the city. Rooms enough not just for Hector and Eugenia, but Sophos and Helen’s three children as well. The youngest, Aurelius, seemed to be asleep already, one door closed and a nursemaid nodding asleep on a chair beside it, but the older children had dragged every pillow and blanket to be found and set up a nest in the middle of the floor, where Gen sat cross-legged, hook and hand each resting on one knee as they settled around him.

“What shall I tell tonight?” he asked the eager audience, and the children clambered with suggestion after suggestion until Hector asked for the story of the Thief Who’d Stolen a Kingdom. It was a popular tale. Gen always claimed he could not resist the urge to brag of his exploits, but she knew it was that _Hector_ asked and he could not help but foster every soft spot in the child to guard him from the truths of being a future king. 

> There was once a Thief, named for his god as all thieves are. He was a particularly young thief, full of confidence, for he had many daring feats behind him—he had stolen from barons and kings and gods alike. His cousin who was Eddis quite despaired of him, in truth, for he had not found a challenge yet that he would not attempt. And the greatest of these challenges was the neighbouring country’s queen, who was beautiful and cold and cruel.

Gen paused in his telling, looking up to catch her eye. 

“And here she comes now,” he said, amusement lingering at the corners of his lips though he carried a grave air. “Your mother and the wicked queen both. One must remember, children, that the hero of one story is the villain of another.”

She rolled her eyes, greeting the children who had hurtled from their nest to hug her and then sending them back with a wave of her hand before joining them with a careful bending of her knees and arranging of her robes. 

“Why is it always the thief who stole a kingdom and not the queen who saved hers?” she teased Gen. 

He looked wounded, not the way he did when he really hurt—she saw that less often now, though it never entirely went away—but in the manner meant to invoke her sympathy. 

"I do, of course,” he protested, “and the Queen is wonderfully clever and cunning when I do. But the children asked for this one tonight." 

“It’s because you tell it better.” She turned and caught little Pol’s eye, and gave him a wink. “But Pol, at least, likes the queen best.”

Hector protested and Leda giggled, and Eugenia slipped a hand from beneath her blanket to rest on her mother’s knee in an attempt at comfort. To all of them it was nothing more than a funny tale of their parents, unaware of the weight of blood and war and regrets that had come with it, unaware of how easily it could come to pass again.

“Continue then, my thief,” she said, and Gen did, weaving a tale of adventure and betrayal and love—love for one’s country, and family, and those found along the way.

“Remember,” he said, to a dubious audience who merely wanted another cunning swordfight, “that a kingdom might be stolen, but the rest can only be given freely, or it is not yours at all. Not even the gods can say otherwise.”

When the story was done, three sets of eyes were well on their way to dreams. Eugenia, however, was watching her mother, eyes glinting with the same brightness as the ruby of the fibula tucked beneath her pillow. The Baron Ephrata’s, if Irene was not mistaken; she’d seen it when he’d made an untoward comment about Hector earlier in the day. Best to let Gen deal with it. She might poison the man, if left to her own devices. 

Pressing a kiss to her daughter’s head, she rose and left the room, gathering her attendants and heading out of the palace. She crossed the terrace towards the private gardens, nodding to the already present guards and attendants near its entrance. It had become a popular spot in these last few years, by necessity, and what had once been one table for breakfast had become several tables spread to accommodate the many who waited for her. At one she saw Phresine, her hands gnarled beyond attendant duties but still a beloved friend and ally. The queen stopped by the table briefly to speak to her before acknowledging the men on guard and heading down the stairs.

It surprised her how quiet the garden was as soon as she stepped inside, though she came here most evenings. She walked through the foliage, and towards the middle of the gardens she found Helen in a chair brought out for her use, her feet propped upon another and her stomach round. The Queen of Eddis always laughed that with her height the child _had_ nowhere to go but out, and Irene was not certain it was entirely a joke. There was a brief and bitter stab of longing in her breast at the sight—the kingdom had its child and the gods theirs, but she had imagined that perhaps she might have had one that was just hers, one to be shielded from such duties, but no such child had come—yet it passed, quicker every time. 

“Irene!” Helen said, smiling and moving as if to stand.

Irene waved her aside, and took a seat upon one of the pillow-strewn benches. 

“You look well,” she remarked.

“I look like one of Gen’s elephants,” Helen corrected.

“A very well elephant, then.”

They shared a smile, and Irene cast her eyes around the garden. Sophos and the Magus of Sounis were in a far corner, examining the rare plant the ambassador of Roa had sent after the last diplomatic incident. Really, they should have known by now that sending that sort of pompous bore led to trouble. On second thought, that had probably been the point.

“Sophos’ father is well?” Irene asked, and Helen sighed.

“No. As I’m sure your spies have already told you.”

“They must be trained somewhere, Helen, though I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of it being Eddis. That cousin of yours you sent to attend to Gen is awful.”

“But entertaining, I hope.”

Irene smiled. “Very.”

The conversation moved on, the women talking of courtiers and children and how very similar the two could be, and of marriage and kingdoms, of the latest performance of Cenna’s _Royal Favor_ and the year’s Golden Pen contenders as the sun made its slow descent on the horizon. 

A meal would be brought to them soon enough, a reprieve from the large banquets that took up much of their evenings on these visits, and it still took her aback that such a thing was possible. She wished she could tell that near-child who’d seized her throne and held it through sheer determination and sharp edges that it would not always have to be like that, that the skills she learnt then would allow her to protect those she loved now. She had been so lonely in those days, and unaware of it. Helen had changed too, and Gen, and Sophos who had scarcely been more than a child himself when she’d held him prisoner. For the better, she thought. Hoped. She would not have done differently, regardless.

There was a rustle in the bushes interrupting her thoughts, the tell-tale sign of a Thief who did not wish to startle them or hear anything untoward; Gen appeared a moment later, dropping a kiss to Helen’s head and remarking that she looked large, and dodging her quick fist with a laugh. He sauntered over to the bench Irene sat upon, throwing himself artfully upon it like a man stricken, his head in her lap.

“My Queen,” he said, eyelashes fluttering as he looked up at her, “shall you protect me?”

Irene brushed the hair from his face and gave him her most tender smile, leaned in closer. “No.”

He huffed and settled in more firmly, eyes drifting shut. 

“Those children of yours, Helen…” he said. 

“My children are perfectly well-behaved.”

“Pol tried to take me down at the knees this afternoon!”

“Did he succeed?” Irene asked.

Gen was silent, and Helen leaned forward to pour herself some watered wine from an amorpha. 

“As I said,” she asserted. “Perfectly behaved.”

His disgruntled protest lodged and summarily dismissed, as he knew it would be, the conversation moved on to other matters. 

Sophos and the Magus both joined them a few moments later, the latter with sketchbook in hand.

“I think the ambassador’s gift is the nightweed written about in Theophrastus’s works,” he said. “I will have to check my scrolls when we return home, but it hasn’t been seen in the Little Peninsula for many years and was believed lost. It’s said to have great medicinal properties. Has Petrus seen it?”

Irene sighed. “No, and you will not tell him. He and Galen will quarrel over who should have a cutting first if they know.”

The Magus nodded. “So, so, so.”

A comfortable silence fell over them, broken with conversation and companionship, good food and laughter. And as the stars began to appear in the evening sky, Irene remembered why it was that peace was more than just a duty to be borne.


End file.
